The invention relates to a method for testing the operability of a driver assistance system installed in a test vehicle, and in particular a driver assistance system intervening in the longitudinal or transverse guidance of the vehicle.
The following discussion of related art is provided to assist the reader in understanding the advantages of the invention, and is not to be construed as an admission that this related art is prior art to this invention.
A set of defined, required test scenarios to be satisfied by the systems exist as part of the development and certification of driver assistance systems, especially those system that intervene in the longitudinal and/or transverse guidance. Driver assistance systems that are subject to these rigorous testing processes include systems used to warn of a longitudinal traffic collision, so-called FCW systems (FCW=Forward Collision Warning), as well as systems that automatically initiate a braking process, frequently also referred to as emergency brake assistant, so-called AEB systems (AEB=Automatic Emergency Brake). However, follow-on systems, i.e. systems that automatically follow a vehicle ahead and automatically adjust the distance through interventions, for example ACC (ACC=Adaptive Cruise Control), also fall into this category.
The test requirements are relatively complex, and it is expected that the number and complexity of these test scenarios will continue to rise in the future. Very strict demands are placed on the test procedure and the evaluation of the results, in particular with respect to the reproducibility and accuracy of the test scenarios to be performed, because the operability of the driver assistance systems can only be tested by actually driving the test vehicles, meaning that realistic test situations are set up. This means that the vehicle to be tested and the preceding vehicle representing a likely, critical obstacle must travel along exact, predetermined travel trajectories which are exactly defined by the test requirements. This in turn requires a long training period for the drivers of the vehicles wherein several trials must be performed until the required number of reproducible tests is successfully completed. Alternatively, the vehicles may be equipped with very complex, suitably programmed, controllable driving robotics capable of travelling along the desired driving profiles with the assistance of additional measures, such as corresponding external controls.
In other words, the implementation of the required, necessary tests is extremely difficult, time-consuming, cumbersome and associated with high costs. In particular, however, the reproducibility does not always satisfy all requirements. A change or extension of the required tests with new test scenarios or test variations is associated with significant effort.
It would therefore be desirable and advantageous to obviate prior art shortcomings and to provide an method for testing the functional capability of such driver assistance systems, which improves over previously known methods.